Mercer Sued by Hedge Fund Worker Fired After Blasting Trump

[Lucky Luciano]

Source: Bloomberg

Hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer, one of the biggest financial backers of Donald Trumps presidential campaign, was sued by a former employee who claims he was fired for calling Mercer racist and publicly criticizing his support of Trump. The complaint by David Magerman, a research scientist who worked at Renaissance Technologies LLC for two decades, alleges he was wrongfully fired April 29 after his relationship with Mercer and his family became toxic. For example, Magerman alleges that Mercers daughter, Rebekah Mercer, a member of Trumps transition team, called him pond scum at a celebrity poker tournament.

The confrontation "just shows the hostility that the Mercers had toward Mr. Magerman because he dared to challenge their political views," his lawyer, H. Robert Fiebach, said in a phone call on Monday.

Mercer, a major investor in Trump-friendly Breitbart News, advised the president to hire two of the Mercer familys longtime political advisers, Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. Mercers politics have "tainted" the hedge fund, while internal policies that prohibit "politely" speaking out against the company in public are "unfair and untenable," Magerman said in the complaint, filed May 5 in federal court in Philadelphia.

The dispute started on Jan. 16 when Magerman called Mercer and asked to have a conversation about his support of Trump, according to the complaint. During the chat, Mercer said the U.S. had started going in the wrong direction after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, according to the complaint. Mercer also said that black Americans were doing fine in the late 1950s and are the only racist people remaining in the U.S., according to the complaint.

--Snip--

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-08/trump-backer-mercer-sued-by-employee-fired-after-speaking-out

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The Mercer's truly are sleazebuckets. Magerman is worth many tens of millions of dollars, so he is fine - though he probably gave up a lot of money - maybe $50MM or more to voice his concerns over Mercer.

Article headline is slightly misleading - the firing was more about things getting personal than simply criticizing Trump - nonetheless...the alleged conversation Magerman had with Mercer is highly believable - and it really paints the Mercers as pond scum and not the other way around.

[iluvtennis]

1. Wow, hope he gets $ settlement for wrongful termination. don't think an employer can fire someone..

...for their political views. That's discrimination.

[still_one]

2. unfortunately, I don't think he has a case. If you call you boss a racist, that probably is

regarded as insubordination.

Everything you said though is correct. The Mercers are pond scum

[Lucky Luciano]

9. One thing Magerman does have....

He knows the secret sauce - or much of it anyway. A disgruntled former employee with a lot of knowledge about a firm that makes 80% returns every year for over 30 years? They'll pay to keep his mouth shut.

1000s of math/science/computer science/stats PhD have tried to replicate Renaissance. To no avail. There are two kinds of hedge funds. Renaissance and not Renaissance.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. 80% every year for 30 years? That would turn 1 dollar into 45 million

so I think there must be a typo there somewhere (1.8^30 is over 45 million)

[Lucky Luciano]

12. Simple interest. Size of the fund is capped.

Once the fund (which only employees are allowed to invest in) gets to $10B, they have to cash out. Used to be $5B cap on the fund size.

Also the fund charges employees 5% management fees and 44% of profits. I know people who would work at Renaissance without salary as long as they can invest in the medallion fund.

Returns will diminish if the fund is too big due to market impact.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. If it's simple interest, then it's not a meaningful return per year now

Only compound interest gives a meaningful comparison.

With simple interest, you're saying that $1 initial investment returns 80 cents a year - so over 30 years, $1 has turned into $25 (which you'd get with just over 11% compound interest - fine, but not something incredible). But each year, your money would only be growing by 3.2% a year.

[Lucky Luciano]

14. Well...not exactly simple interest...

Closer to simple than compounding sure. I imagine it is closer to compounding when you are small, but once you get bigger, there is little choice, but to be forced to take a redemption. Also, I think there may be a thing about taking turns being invested from what I heard. Nobody outside of Renaissance really knows the rules for how much you are allowed to have invested at one time, so it is opaque...there are a LOT of multimillionaires there though, so fair to say that the returns are incredible. Never losing in 30 years alone is a good thing.

So even if it is only 11% per year with simple interest as the right model - I will take that any day of the week if you never lose!! Profits divided by the standard deviation of the profits is very high - insanely high. That ratio called the Sharpe ratio is incredible at Renaissance.

[DBoon]

3. I'd love to see what comes out in discovery

lots of stuff that Mercer does not want to see the light of day

[Sculpin Beauregard]

4. The Mercers are truly, truly evil. I hope they get skewered, at least in the media.

They need to be shown for the twisted, ugly sociopaths that they are.

[riversedge]

5. so Mercer lost his cool. Lets hope they hit him good in the wallet.

[Elwood P Dowd]

6. Black people "were doing fine" making $2.00 to $5.00 a day back in the late 1950s?

That and generally being treated like shit in most parts on the country.

[Lucky Luciano]

7. Sleazebuckets. nt

[dawn frenzy adams]

8. You really need to read this article from the Guardian.

?w=1900&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=eb0def985d7e1b9f15dcd7a9e7ecad8d

The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked
A shadowy global operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign influenced the result of the EU referendum. As Britain heads to the polls again, is our electoral process still fit for purpose?
by Carole Cadwalladr
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy?CMP=share_btn_tw

[Lucky Luciano]

10. Yup...been watching this stuff.

Funny thing - I am actually Facebook friends with Bekah- knew her and her sisters way back. They don't participate there, but I can't believe how evil they became after their father got rich late in life.